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Problem after cleaning my canister filter.

R

RickB

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Joined
4 Apr 2016
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384
Location
UK
Hi

I just gave my canister filter a good clean (apart from the ceramic rings and bio balls) put it all back together and turned it on after making sure all air had escaped, now my water looks murky, dirty and not very nice...

I have carbon in one of the baskets, could this be the cause?
 
no idea, it is clearing slowly.

After cleaning the filter the last thing I expected was dirty water :/
 
If you literally just cleaned the filter and turned it back on and the cloudy stuff looks brown, then I would say that is just disturbed mulm from the filter which has got in to the system. I had that after my last filter clean, but the filter cleared it up within an hour or so. If its white cloudy, then that sounds like you killed the bacteria in the filter and have had a bloom in the tank, but that would not happen straight after cleaning and turning it back on, it would take a little time.
 
yeah water has a brown tint to it, i left the bio balls and ceramic rings alone because of the bacteria :)

As I said it is clearing slowly, just caught me off guard.
 
Last filter clean that I carried out I washed the pre-filter sponge in tap water, but just rinsed the pan scrubbers in old tank water and did nothing at all to the alfagrog. When I put it all back together I got the brown water for an hour or so, but did get a minor bacteria bloom in the tank a couple of days later. It just looked very slightly white and cloudy, but cleared within 24 hours. It seems it is really easy to kill off bacteria, which is why I tend to clean my filter as little as possible, maybe once every 6 months.
 
The smell is not great either when you go up close to the top.
 
I clean canister's once each month (two eheim 2217's and one Rena XP3)
If I clean just the mechanical media ,I'm good.
But if I backwash the filter by draining the water from it into a bucket ,and then pour this water back into the filter with hoses in the sink (backwards flow from normal operation),the water is ofte more dirtier than the media I cleaned.
Believe this is due to dirt collecting on /in the biological media (ehiem substrat pro)
Not to worried bout killing off some bacteria in the filter considering all other surfaces where it can grow glass, inside hoses,substrate,wood,rock's,plant leaves,etc or bothered much by temporary bacteria bloom.
Bacteria is quick to multiply- re-establish itself .
 
I always hold a very fine mesh net under the outflow when switching on..after cleaning.
 
Every time I stop my external filter clean it and turn it back on I get a cloud of muck from the filter blow into my tank it clears very quickly though. Even after cleaning an external filter there will always be some muck left in it, and when you prime the filter so it will flow properly back to the tank your going to disturb / dislodge some of the muck.
 
I always just rinse all my media in tap water. If you get worried, then just use tank water and rinse well. The muck I get is from my hoses. I have never cleaned them but have considered getting another set of hoses so I can just switch them each time.
 
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